


a wild interior

by balphesian



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:39:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balphesian/pseuds/balphesian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War sucks. Or: what it means to be the youngest of the family Johnson during the secret enslavement of the human race.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a wild interior

**Author's Note:**

> This basically came about because of a comment on tumblr on a graphic that led to a graphic that led to me staring pitifully into gdocs, so here's a small fic! Written mostly to the tune of Shearwater's _[Animal Life](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKeXfh7WH54),_ and a little bit of Now, Now's _[Wolf](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHHtkeM8o-A)._

On Axl’s twenty-first birthday, Mike takes him into the forest with Ty and Anders and his eccentric cousin Olaf and tells him, that if he wants, that if he’s willing, he can help save the world.

"Awesome," Axl says.

When Mike explains what the world is—what's happening in plain sight—he snorts, because it's a good birthday prank, really, it is, but there is such a thing as going too far, and he gets IV-fed enough sci-fi through his and Zeb’s movie nights as it is. He looks at Olaf, who’s nodding along sagely, and then to Anders, and then Ty, who doesn’t generally go along with pranks unless someone makes him (and even then, it’s half-hearted), and... blinks, because they all look quite serious about the possibility of alien takeover. 

And this—this is exactly where Axl begins to laugh nervously, because if he’s honest, it’s starting to freak him out a bit.

“Seriously, you can stop,” he says. “Anytime now would be good.”

≺Can’t do that, Axl,≻ says Olaf, clapping Axl on the shoulder, and Axl just looks at him. He’d been certain he’d just heard him speak, even though his mouth—

“Uh, yeah, cuz,” he says, slowly. “Yeah, you can.”

"Olaf isn't your cousin, Axl," Mike says, tersely. "His name isn't really Olaf, either."

No—because, turns out, according to Mike, he's actually a blue deer from outer-fucking- _space_. Or _was_ , at least. Axl's still a little fuzzy on the mechanics of what, exactly, Olaf is; Olaf had tried to explain, had tried to make Axl understand what he’d been before he'd become stuck in this shape, and why he had come to Earth in the first place. _To prevent war, Axl,_ he'd said. _But I failed. So now, we fight._

“He’s also technically our grandfather,” Anders pipes up, unhelpfully, lighting up a cigarette in what Axl can only assume is boredom. (Clearly, this has happened more than once.)

"An alien's our grandpa," Axl repeats, slowly. "I'm part alien."

"Andalite. And he wasn't an alien at the time," Mike explains. "He looked like us. When he, you know. So no, we're still one hundred percent human, DNA-wise."

Olaf shrugs. ≺I fell in love, I made babies... and I became human. It happens.≻

“It _happens?_ ” Axl asks incredulously. “And how the _fuck_ are you doing that?”

Olaf taps his temple. ≺It’s how my species communicates.≻

“Trust me, I had a hard time believing it too,” says Ty, fairly diplomatically, given the circumstances, and Axl just fucking stares at him.

And then Olaf opens up the rucksack he’d brought along and draws out a blue cube, and tells Axl to place his hands on it—and Axl does, and he’s not sure why—but he _does_ , and Olaf tells him that if he says yes, if he surrenders himself to this power, he can’t go back. Nothing will ever be the same.

And Axl thinks, well, fuck it. If his brothers are in, then so is he.

And then his entire world turns on its fucking head.  


+

  
"You don't actually fight," Axl says, days later, after he'd made himself some coffee and dragged himself out of his stubborn sulk, ready to face civilization once more with with additional knowledge that his _entire family_ is fighting a secret invasion from _evil slugs_. "All you do is sit around and get wasted."

Olaf hums. “Yes,” he says, after a considering pause.

Axl makes an impatient gesture.

"Well, Axl, when I became a _nothlit_ , I lost the ability to change. That's the price you pay for staying too long in one form." Olaf takes another hit off his spliff. "So now I just… advise. Moral support, that kind of thing."

"A what-lit?"

"It's what we call those who become trapped in a morph. If you stay in one shape for over two of your Earth hours—"

"—You get stuck, I know. You _just said._ " 

"Well, that's what I am."

Olaf sounds pretty cavalier about it, but it's only then that Axl discovers just how old Olaf actually is, and how hard he'd fought—alone, at first, and all by himself. Olaf tells him how he'd fallen in love with a human woman, got her pregnant, and then left. “I had to keep moving,” he explains. “Nobody could ever know what I was. If I had to change back every two hours... well, you can see how that might become problematic in the long run.”

“That sucks,” Axl says, and sits down at the table with his mug of strong coffee, and listens.

Olaf tells him how he’d watched his daughter grow up, watched her have kids of her own. Mike, first, and then Anders, and then Ty, and then— _you_ , Olaf says, not without a note of pride. He tells Axl how he’d decided he couldn’t keep fighting by himself, how he gave the morphing power to Mike after explaining all the horror that would accompany it; he tells Axl how he’d fought with Mike side-by-side, how he and his _shorm_ had battled together and shed blood together. How, one day, he’d been taken captive in human form, in line to be processed as a controller, and how, by the time Mike had got to him, it had been too late.

Axl’s eyebrows draw together. “Why didn’t you morph back? You could’ve escaped so easily as... you know, blue deer you.”

Olaf puffs out a plume of sickly-sweet smoke.

“Because I couldn’t let the Yeerks know they’d captured an Andalite. You see, the hosts the Yeerks want most are our kind. To control an Andalite body is to harness the power to morph, and I’d much rather be a _nothlit_ than give that up to them.” He makes a low, contemplative noise. “I would’ve been outnumbered, anyway.”

“Ah,” Axl says. “Yeah, I can see that being a not-good thing. A very bad thing, actually.”

“Besides, they already have one Andalite host.” Olaf’s eyes go dark as he sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “One is more than enough.”

Axl nods, mouth twisting. “Yeah.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Then:

“Sorry, and—no offense, Olaf, but you seem... I mean,” Axl starts, pointedly not looking at the spliff, “You seem really... human? A really _weird_ human, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t have pegged you for an alien.”

Olaf shrugs. “I’ve been on this planet a long, long time. I’ve had years and years to adapt. And, you know, out of all the species, in all the planets—human’s not such a bad thing to be.” He leans back in his chair, a fond look on his face. “In fact, I rather like it. Did you know, the first time I tasted pizza, I couldn’t stop eating it for a month?”

Axl laughs, something in his chest constricts, because while everything’s changed—some things really haven’t.  


+

  
Their first family outing of the month—and that’s loosely putting it, since it’s only Mike and Olaf—is to the Auckland Zoo. Only it's after-hours, and _definitely_ not legal.

"How do you even do this without getting caught?" Axl hisses. “Don’t they have security cameras and stuff to prevent this sort of thing?”

“Taken care of,” Mike says.

“Shat on, more like,” says Olaf gleefully. “Never underestimate the power of bird shit, Axl. It’s a surprisingly versatile substance.”

“O- _kay_ ,” Axl says. “That’s disgusting.”

“Necessary,” Mike corrects. “The last thing we want is to get caught. And it’s not just the police that would deal to us, Axl, never forget that.”

Axl sighs. “I know, I know. let’s just—get this over with, all right?”

Once they’re inside the zoo, it’s a surprisingly leisurely walk; not helped, of course, by the fact that it’s being done in the dark. But Axl can see well enough by the light of the moon, and besides, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel a thrill at creeping about at night, doing borderline criminal shit; it’s like _ninja stuff_. If he could only tell Zeb. He’d totally appreciate it.

"First things first," Mike says, rubbing his hands together. "You need a battle morph."

"A battle morph,” Axl repeats, rolling the idea over his tongue. “Okay, sounds fair enough. So what's yours, then?"

"Generally, I use the lioness."

Axl snorts. " _Lioness?_ You turn into a girl lion every time you fight?"

Mike rolls his eyes. "The sex of the animal doesn't matter. Our minds stay the same. Lionesses are the hunters—it's all about the economy of movement. You need to pick something that's going to do some damage in a fight."

"Right," Axl says. They walk for a while longer, and then Axl catches a glint of yellow-orange, of moonlight on gray fur, and slows to a stop in front of an enclosure.

"How about this?"

Olaf looks into the pen, eyebrows raised, and then looks at Mike, and they both look at Axl, and Axl starts to get a little nervous.

It’s hard not to be scared shitless when confronting a gray wolf, but the minute he has his hands on the wolf’s flanks, it calms immediately, and so does Axl. The fur is soft and dark under his palm, and he can feel the animal breathing steadily as he acquires it—two beings as one, just for a moment, connected by whatever science magic it is that will allow Axl to _become_ this creature. There’s some kind of silent understanding, one that Axl can’t really come to grips with, but one that means something, at least. And when it’s done, he scrambles up and out of the enclosure, and the wolf returns to its business, loping across dirt and bits of wood and grass.

He acquires three other animals that night: a raven, for transportation, an african elephant (who hadn’t seemed to notice he’d touched it at all), and a grizzly bear (who definitely _had_ noticed). Good enough for now, Mike tells him; you’ll pick up more on the way, but it’s a start. Axl just nods, a bit shakily, and when Mike drops him off at his flat, he collapses directly into bed and doesn’t get up until noon.  


+

  
The next order of business, according to Ty, is to get him used to morphing.

They’re at Wattle Bay, with Ty’s van parked on the sand, just behind the dunes. A cool breeze wafts in from the tide. The sun is low in the sky, casting long shadows on the sparse vegetation, and making the water glitter with fading light.

“How hard can it be, really?” Axl says, clad only in a tight pair of underpants. He shivers a little. “I mean, it’s not like it’s... er. Is it?”

Ty, who’s decked out in a black suit of under armour, shakes his head. “It takes a lot of focus. Morphing can be tricky, and you need to understand that it’s not fast or easy. It’s your body changing, and if you’re caught unawares in the middle of a morph, you can’t be helped. Understand?”

Axl does, because he’s a pretty fast learner and it’s not like this is like taking a _test_ , or anything, and Ty tells him how it’s going to feel, and how to best prepare himself for the mind of the animal he’s about to morph; it’s going to feel strange, at first, like you’re underwater, because the animal’s mind will be trying to do what it normally does, Ty explains. _But you’re in control._

“Your first morph should be an animal with a mild temperament,” Ty says, and peers at him. “You _do_ have one of those, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Axl says, and thinks of the raven.

“Good.” Ty nods once. “Go ahead and focus on the morph. Really see it in your mind’s eye. Then imagine yourself changing—there you go.”

Axl, surprised, looks down at himself and sees feathers sprouting from his arms, and laughs, absorbed in the sight. His fingers begin to lengthen to an insane degree and melt together, turning a shiny black, and for a moment, Axl has wings. “Holy shit, this is so coouawk—”

Then his nose and chin begin to fuse and harden, and what comes out of his mouth is more of a squawk than anything a human could make; then he’s rapidly losing mass, and the peculiar, muted sensation of his bones and organs rearranging themselves consumes his attention, until he’s just a feathery blob in the sand, half-formed. It takes another moment until he’s changed completely, but by then, the giant threat now standing over him is casting a long shadow, _danger_ written in every line of its massive body.

Axl immediately spreads his wings to flap away, before Ty speaks:

“Hey, it’s just me. Get yourself together. Don’t listen to the bird. Remember: you’re in control.”

The pang of worry ebbs; Axl draws in his wings and cocks his head, staring at Ty with one beady, glassy eye.

≺Oh, right,≻ he says, and then stops, abruptly. ≺Can you hear me?≻

“Yes, Axl,” Ty says, somewhat exasperatedly.

≺ _Awesome_ ,≻ Axl says, and the raven caws in excitement. ≺What now?≻

“Now,” Ty says, smiling faintly—and beginning to change, _rapidly_ , until his skin is flush with feathers, spotted black and white and specks of gray, until his eyes flood inky black and his fingers turn to talons—≺We go flying.≻

Ty’s white hawk morph is faster than Axl’s raven, but they climb at the same speed, circling above the beach until they find a thermal and ride it up, up, and up until what feels like forever—and Axl just _laughs_ , joyous with the feeling, of soaring above the world, of the wind rushing through his feathers. It’s immediate, this happiness, and he shouts into the air with it. Beside him, Ty lets out a quiet laugh of his own, confined to the mental link between them, a thin thread of shared bliss. The ability comes naturally; he surrenders himself to the raven’s innate knowledge of how to fly, and just enjoys himself, the incredible feeling of being lifted _above_ , higher, and higher, into cloud, into endlessness.

≺Whenever I need to think, I come here to fly.≻ Ty wings above him on a downdraft, the white of his wings flashing pale against the sunlight. ≺It’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?≻

≺It’s fantastic,≻ Axl says, his heart tight with happiness. ≺It’s the best I’ve ever felt.≻

They soar together for an hour, until the sun dips below low-hanging clouds. Ty leads him back to the beach, that little strip of sand so far below, so insignificant. Axl can feel his heart plummet with the raven as they dive down, and down, until Ty pulls up his wings and slows to a stop, his talons clattering against stones and shells. Axl lands less gracefully, hopping once to catch his footing, and, after a moment, finds himself inexplicably melancholy.

≺I don’t want it to end,≻ he admits, mostly to himself. Beside him, Ty’s wickedly curved profile turns to regard him, fixing him with a sharp, wet-black gaze.

≺I know,≻ he says, and there is such feeling behind those two words that Axl is momentarily thrown; he just looks at Ty and thinks— _I’m so sorry,_ and looks once more up into the vast expanse of sky, his chest all in knots.

They morph back in the light of sunset and drive back to Mike’s, windows down, as the sounds of crickets chirping fade softly into the rush of evening breeze. Ty has a small smile on his face, one he probably doesn’t even realise is there; Axl shares in it as he watches the trees, and then buildings, flash by.  


+

  
On Sunday morning, Axl's mobile churns out a few clashes and grunts before he answers it with a muffled groan, resenting the very idea of speaking whilst still ensconced in his duvet. Sunlight spills through the half-drawn curtains and splashes onto his face, and he mumbles out a curse, burying deep into the soft cocoon of not-dealing-with-this, maybe-later, go-away.

“Morning, sunshine,” Anders says cheerfully in his ear. “Get up, we have important family stuff to take care of.”

“Ugh,” Axl says, and moves his thumb to end the call.

“Don’t you dare press that button. We have a date, and you’re going to honour it.”

“When you say important family stuff,” Axl grumbles, “do you mean the whole family, or—”

“Just you and me, baby bro. Wake up. I’m serious. I’m coming over and kicking your arse out of bed if I have to.”

“No, don’t—”

Anders hangs up.

Axl takes the phone away from his ear and regards it with equal measures of horror and irritation. Then he throws it across the room and shoves his head back into his pillow, because he’s not going to deal with this shit, not now, and Anders can bloody wait outside the door himself if he’s so keen on ruining a perfectly good Sunday.

Fifteen minutes later, a tapping starts on Axl’s window. Blearily, he turns his head to look, and just _stares_ at the golden eagle, uncomprehending.

“What,” he says, and then: “Oh, you prick.”

≺I told you to get up,≻ Anders says. Thinks. _Projects_ , or whatever—that's never not going to freak him out. ≺I will peck this glass apart, don’t think I won’t.≻

Axl curses as he stumbles out of bed, petulantly peels off his t-shirt, shoves open the window, and begins to morph the raven. Anders looks fiercely at him—well, the eagle does, Anders has a hard time looking threatening all seven days of the week—until he hops up on the sill, adjusts his wings, and looks at Anders with as glacial an expression he can muster in a body incapable of emoting.

≺There. You happy now?≻

≺Good man,≻ Anders says. ≺And off we go. Stick close, eh? Long day ahead.≻

Axl follows Anders to a remote clearing in Woodhill Forest, landing beside him in a plume of wings and dust. Anders is already morphing back, shedding his feathers, growing fingers, losing the fearsome hooked beak and yellow eyes. He stretches, bones creaking. Raises his arms above his head, swings them back down again, loosening up his joints. 

Axl’s is a slower morph than usual; he’s still tired. 

“So,” he says, with a human mouth, rubbing sleep from his eyes, already dreading the actual reason behind Anders’ highly exhausting timing. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about, or are you going to make me guess?”

“Yep,” Anders says, incredibly unhelpfully. And grins, dimples showing deep, white teeth bared.

Teeth that are suddenly far sharper than usual.

“Shit,” Axl says, realising _why_ with an uncomfortable jolt, and begins his own change—too late.

Before he can finish, a great force slams into his side, his half-formed paws scrabbling at the dirt as he struggles to complete the morph, snarling at the attacker that had, only a moment ago, been right in front of him. ≺Wanker! What was that for?≻ He shouts, echoing the low, dangerous growl that pours forth from the wolf’s maw, and jumps to all fours, scenting the air with a fully-formed nose.

≺Oh, come on, that was barely a _tap!_ ≻ Anders laughs, and Axl catches a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. ≺Gotta be quick, bro. Your enemies aren’t going to be so kind.≻

Axl’s hackles raise in frustration. He’s not stupid, he knows what Anders is doing. The real thing, Axl is sure, is going to be a hundred times worse; he doesn’t want to think how it’s going to feel when he’s thrown into the thick of it, made to use teeth and claws. Nature’s weapons, and nothing else, and this—it’s meagre preparation, but it’s something.

And it’s still bullshit.

He catches a whiff of Anders on the breeze, of something musky-smooth and feline. Just as he pivots to pinpoint it, a yellow blur streaks out from behind the trees and slams into him, sending him rolling head-over-tail in the grass. He yelps in pain and surprise, and regains his footing fast as he can while trying to keep Anders in his eyeline; the whip of a black-spotted tail flicks into view, and so does the rest of him, prowling out from behind the leafy mesh of a thornbush, the wide trunk of a tree.

≺A fucking _cheetah?_ ≻ Axl barks, baring his teeth in anger and frustration. ≺That’s not fair!≻

≺It’s plenty fair,≻ Anders says, circling him in a predatory lope. ≺Trust me, I’m going easy on you.≻

Axl just _snarls_ in response. 

And then, he moves.

In the end, there’s streaks of blood and fur on the forest floor, and Axl lies on his side, human, whole, heaving in shaky breaths, muscles trembling with adrenaline. Anders, still bleeding from an ugly gash Axl’s grizzly claws had left across his hyena morph’s chest, is sitting heavily in the grass, listing a little to the side; his red mouth hangs open in a pant, and his tongue lolls and curls as his powerful jaw flexes, licking at his wounds. They had both changed morphs only once, when Axl’s front leg had got so mangled by the cheetah’s teeth that he could no longer walk, but not before slamming Anders’ head into the tree trunk so hard his snout cracked and broke, leaving a thick smear of blood.

“I’m sorry,” Axl says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to get so... intense.”

Anders looks at him, and sounds entirely too casual for the savagery that had just occurred, that they had both suffered. ≺Hey, it’s what we came here for. You did well, I’m proud of you.≻

Axl wonders if Anders would go another round; during the fight, just once, just for a moment, he had seemed to forget that he was fighting his own brother. It had got bloody, then; Axl can still feel the phantom pains of suffering Anders’ powerful teeth in the ruff of his neck, tearing at the skin underneath. He’d yelled, angry, betrayed—are you _insane?_ —and Anders had let off, the line of his body a little shocked, startled at how he’d let himself slip. But not sorry for it. (He’s never sorry, not for his shitty morals, not for fucking anything that moves, not for causing the most problems in the family, not for anything.) 

Axl had felt a powerful shaking anger, a violent outrage (why would you—I’m your brother) and had retaliated with his own vicious bite, and run them both into the ground, the smell of blood and sweat thick on the air, and then, after that, they had stopped pretending it was anything other than a crash course on learning how to die.

He lets his eyes fall shut, rolls onto his back, and drifts. Unconsciousness hovers at the very fringes of his mind, crooking an inviting finger; but he waits, and listens. Vaguely, he can feel the rough scrape of wiry fur against his side where Anders slumps against him, and then stomach-turning crack of bone as the fur gives way to skin, the bubbling up of mass and muscle. The wet rasp in Anders’ breathing evens as his lungs change, and heal, and then he’s human—at least, in body.

Axl dozes. Everything is still, and calm. Then, there in the forest, with Anders spitting red-tinted saliva into the dirt beside him, he sleeps, and dreams of flying.

+

The first time Axl fights, when he tastes blood on his—the wolf's—tongue, when he sinks his teeth deep into flesh and rends it from muscle and bone, he is still twenty-one, and he is still too young for this.

He splits a Taxxon from protruding head to sagging belly and watches its guts pour from its ruined shell, watches it shriek and struggle in the throes of death and frenzied hunger, until, with its last rattling breaths, it tries to consume its own putrid innards. The taste of it is foul in Axl's mouth, but the wolf knows nothing of nausea, only success; he tears his eyes away from the mess and stares, mouth dripping blood and viscera, at the nightmare unfolding before him.

A thick sheen of blood coats the floor. Some of it is human; some of it is animal. Most of it is alien. A polar bear's white flanks are stained a syrupy red, and an ugly gash bleeds on its side, from where a Hork-Bajir's arm blade had lashed out in attack; a lioness opens up a Taxxon with a swipe of its powerful paw, and leaps to tear at the neck of another; a hyena snaps and laughs and thrashes a human controller about like a rag doll, even though its back leg is bent at a nauseating angle; and Axl watches and pants and thinks, _oh god, these animals are my brothers._

Nobody is ever ready to kill, Axl thinks, letting his claws tear through skin, surrendering himself to the wolf's keener senses, knowing instinctively where to turn, and when to attack, how to cause the most pain, how to end it quickly. Nobody should ever learn what it means to _murder_ ; nobody should experience the horrors of war, no matter how badly it needs to be fought. Nobody deserves this kind of hell.

It's only after they escape the Yeerk pool that Axl allows himself to retch, and to cry. He transforms back into a shivering human _boy_ and suffers the state of shock on the way home, in the car, before vomiting onto Mike's carpet the moment he's in the door. He feels hands on his shoulder-blades, pushing him down onto the couch. He stares at nothing as Ty pushes a cup of tea into his twitching fingers. Anders sits gingerly down next to him and throws an arm over the back of the sofa and flicks on the television; Mike cleans the mess Axl made with a damp towel, and they say nothing, because they don't need to.

It’s so fucked up. One minute they can be killing machines, and the next, they’re all sat together watching telly. As if nothing had happened. Axl can feel the phantom taste of blood in his mouth and wants to dry heave again, but he forces the memory down, swallows the too-sweet tea, and allows himself to get lost in the mindless, static chatter, to feel his brothers as warm, solid presences around him. And it does help, a little. Enough.

When Axl wakes, it's with his head resting on Anders' shoulder, and Ty's cold feet across his thighs, and Mike sprawled on the chair opposite. There's someone puttering around the kitchen—Olaf, Axl thinks tiredly—and the smell of bacon and sausages is too overwhelming to ignore. Carefully, he removes himself from the tangle of limbs and pads to the bathroom to take a slash, and then shuffles to the kitchen, staring blearily at Olaf through a film of sleep and residual exhaustion, scrubbing a hand (a paw, covered with blood—no, just a hand, just a human hand) across his face.

"Breakfast?" Olaf asks, eyes crinkling with the promise of good food and distraction.

"Yes, please," Axl says, and can't bring himself to smile back, not yet.  


+

  
After that, it becomes remarkably easy to kill. The only thing that keeps Axl from going absolutely mad is the knowledge that he's doing this for the rest of the human race, and not just for the hell of it—and it is hell, it's horrific. He's fighting for Gaia, and for Zeb, and for his brothers, and humanity, and life, and everything good and kind in the world.

And that’s something, at least.

He watches what it does to his brothers, the war: it chews them up and spits them back out as different people, with scars in places Axl will never see. He realises how much it must have taken to keep it from him. How much damage the war has done—is doing—to his family. Only a few years ago, Axl remembers Anders shying away from the threat of a fight, where the mere mention of fists had him making flowery excuses to save his own skin. Now, he watches Anders' bones shatter and reform, his mouth stretch into a ghastly parody of a grin, full to the brim with teeth. He watches Anders leap invincibly into the fray without a care in the fucking world for his own well-being, only the lust for violence coating his claws and spotted fur, and Axl thinks—there is something wrong, here. There is something very wrong with my family.

Where Ty had been kind before, he is now only cold, with moments in-between of vicious clarity, where he locks himself in his apartment in a state of shaky misery for days on end. Axl had visited him once, to bring him veggie potluck. He'd noted the purple-red dark circles under his eyes, bright and wet with anguish; he'd noticed how Ty's hands had trembled a little as he'd taken the food and tried to smile, and failed.

Axl had tried to give him a hug, but Ty had stopped him with a hand to his chest, and had shaken his head. "Thank you, Axl," he says, pushing gently. "Later."

Anders visits Ty too, but he brings vodka and beer and scathing sarcasm, and when he leaves, it’s with empty bottles and wild eyes. Axl knows that Anders' split lip, his bloodied nose, the bruises on his face and neck—they are his contribution, they are his get-well present. Axl would have thought, initially, that being someone's punching bag would have royally sucked—but he guesses that people do weird shit for love, because of some kind of deep inner despair, and he's pretty sure Anders needs it too, whatever it is.

After those long days, Ty always crystallises back into ice, into a man Axl can talk to without feeling like he might break him in half. But Ty's light-hearted smile never quite reaches the sadness of his eyes, and Axl wonders why he'd never noticed, before.

Mike stays level-headed because he has to, because he's the leader of this fucked-up little army. Not just a brother: a father. He hides himself well, but Axl knows how he deals, with women, and gambling, and all the little ways he plays with his victims, right before he tears them limb from limb. Axl knows Mike thinks it's all a game. Saving the world. Aliens. Monsters. Shapeshifting. Deep down, he doesn't want to acknowledge just how _real_ it is; he just wants to play, to win, and he does, because losing is not an option, and never will be.

They all have their coping mechanisms. Axl still isn't sure what his is, or if he's changed at all. He still cries at dumb movies and laughs at Zeb's dumb jokes, and cooks dinner for Gaia when she's not feeling very well. He’s still _Axl Johnson_ , this collection of cells and thoughts that cares for people, and sometimes turns into... other things, for a while, just to help, to fight a war he doesn’t know if they’ll ever win.

But in the end, he’s still a part of a family that’s trying to do good. And that’s okay, Axl thinks; he’s proud of that fact.

That’s more than enough to live for.

**Author's Note:**

> Small note! Let's just pretend that Auckland Zoo actually has all those animals to choose from. They have an impressive selection, to be sure, but they definitely don't have spotted hyenas, white hawks, african elephants, polar bears, golden eagles, or grizzly bears. Or ravens! Neither does Wellington Zoo, I believe.
> 
> Also, one day I will edit the crap out of this until it makes sense—but it is not this day.


End file.
